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Can you believe it; we now have a 20 tonne double-decker public service operating a school service being parked up on the pavement. Did the driver apologise and move the vehicle when requested to move by a reader of this blog? Err… no, in fact he evidently got pretty agitated about having the photograph being taken and has kept on doing it. What do the local enforcement guys and the DfT say? Well, err, only that there is nothing that they can do because is it a PSV, not an HGV you see. What I do know, is that the council will be paying for this school-bus service twice. Once to run the service and then again to repair the damage to the pavement caused by such a heavy vehicle. Possibly the council should just suggest that the company either behaves or loses their schools’ contract.

Umm. double decker up on the pavement!

Here is another view of the vehicle. Large isn’t it! We have disguised the operator’s name on the photos, and would request that if any bus expert reading this is able to identify the operator that they keep that information to themselves as we are trying a direct route to the management which should work based on what I know about the company. They will then hopefully have a quiet word with the driver and I think the problem will be fixed. If not then the vehicle will be back when school restarts in the Autumn and we will have to try something else.

Back in October 2010 a PC Roderick Lund was awarded £5,000 in damages after suing his own force for unlawful arrest, false imprisonment and using unreasonable force in relation to a parking incident! It seems that Lund’s next-door neighbour, who was himself a retired police superintendent reported Lund to the police saying that his car was causing an obstruction. Duty officers arrived, agreed and asked Lund to move it which he refused to do saying that he had had a drink. The conversation became more heated with Lund challenging the duty officers motives; Lund was arrested, led away in handcuffs and detained for 10 hours. I wonder if these officers might like to return and deal with the cars and bins that seem to be regularly left obstructing the pavement of the same street.

At least the people involved in the above incidents lived to tell the tale which was not the case for one off-duty policeman in Baltimore who was killed in a dispute over a parking place in which he was hit on the head by a rock in 2010.

I have done a quick little survey of what transport safety stories have hit the news in the past few days. I was prompted to do this when I noticed that a horrific story from Brazil about a car driver who drove at speed through a throng of cyclists taking part in Critical Mass had only resulted in 3 stories in the main-stream media (on CBS, Sky and just now also on the BBC) according to Google News. Update: This story has just hit mainstream media, and Google now reports over 200 articles around the world. It did however take four days to do so, and only went mainstream after the driver was brought in for questioning. The event took place on Friday evening, and by Monday evening this was what Google reported, only 11 articles of which most were cycling media:

Brazil Critical Mass news reports

Have a look at the video of the incident and consider why this was ignored and check out what did make it into the papers.

The big story from today is that the UK government wants us to drive faster on motorways to boost the economy. This resulted in some 793 new articles according to Google News within hours.

Google news resuluts – 80mph

Then there were the 690 news stories acknowledging the 10th anniversary of the ‘Selby rail crash’, which should more accurately be called the ‘Land Rover driver kills 10 rail passengers crash’. Incidentally the driver of the Land Rover was out of jail after serving 30 months of his 5 year term.

Selby crash anniversary

Go back a few weeks there was the story that a possible new inquiry into the deaths of two teenagers who died five years ago while crossing a railway line at a level crossing when the warning lights were flashing. 266 articles for that one, including a front-page story in The Times.

Essex level crossing deaths

And finally there was the story about ‘the footballer who crashed his fast car’. Where have I heard that one before? Result: 305 articles.

Footballer crashes fast car

For comparison, here are the stories that relate to terrible 2006 incident where a car driver slipped on ice and crashed into a group of cyclists and killed 4 of them including a 14yo boy which only resulted in 15 news stories that Google News can find today. The drive, who admitted that he may ‘very possibly’ have been driving too fast, was only fined a total of £180 with £35 costs and given 6 points on his license.

Welsh cyclist deaths 2006

My only conclusion is that motorists (and I am one) hate to be reminded about how dangerous this activity is and of the risks that we are taking on a regular basis. We prefer to read about other stuff, even if it is that we are going to be able to drive faster and take more risks while driving. So much for ‘ending all car crash fatalities‘ as was predicted by the BBC recently!

Pedestrians are discriminated against

"In contrast to the changes made to every town and city to ease motor transport, walking has been made ever more unpleasant. Pedestrians have been treated with contempt. In a myriad of ways when we walk we are treated with less respect than when we drive". (quote for a cross-party parliamentary select committee report on walking in towns from 2001).

This blog documents how this discrimination works, what laws underpin it and what people are doing to counter it. Please take action and share your experiences in the comments section, on twitter or join our facebook group. Add photos to the Flickr pool. All photographs cc-by-sa 3.0 unless otherwise stated or obvious from the source.